BootsnAll Travel Community

when i tell my friends that i am going on a trip they wonder how the heck i have enough money to do so. and the answer is this... i pull it from anywhere i can, putting a bit from each checkinto the bank... using some of my school money, my birthday/christmas money. pretty much from anywhere. so i was just wondering , as a student traveler, how are you funding your trips?

the EXACT same way!

yeah they always yell at me. 'you're gonna get in debt!!!!!' which is somewhat true. the last couple trips i went on, i charged them all on credit cards. they don't take long to pay off.. you'd be surprised how much money a part time job could pull in within a couple months if you just stop spending all of it.

only ONE of my friends supported me. i had half-jokingly said 'damn i should just stop travelling altogether and stop blowing my money.' and she said 'travelling isn't just blowing your money away.. it's entirely worth it. you shouldn't stop doing it if you love it just because you don't want to pay for interest on your cards.'

yea it's a hard thing for non travelers to understand. I think they think that unless you have something physically to show for what you spent your money on then it must not be worth it.
it is hard for me to find traveling buddies from friends of mine bc a majority of them do not share the mindset that i do

damn i feel ya on that!!

there's an on-going joke between me one of my friends. i say 'damn thats enough for a ticket to thailand!' and he'd say 'screw that! that's a new suspension for my car!'

if my friends aren't lecturing me on how they think it's best to [not] spend my money, they're saying how lucky i am, or how jealous they are, of me travelling. what they don't get is that i'm a student just like them, i have a part time job just like them (a lot of them work more hours than i do), i got the same bills to pay off just like them. it's not like they can't travel, they never want to realize that they can! that, or 'sacrifice' their hard earned money on something that isn't quite tangible.

my friends are exaclty the same way.... my roomie has no desire to leave the country ever,, but she workd two jobs so she can go to school and pay a huge car payment.
the things that we bring back from trips may not be material things.. but there just as important... unfortunately not everyone can see that!

1) Freelance Web Work, lets you work from home and when you have time.

2) Don't give into pressure, that is, there will always be someone with money to burn who wants you to burn money with them at some expensive restuarant or waterpark... Don't give into it.

3) Don't Smoke, Don't do drugs, Don't buy drinks from clubs/bars.

4) Don't go to the movies, rent.

5) Be smart about buying and selling books, do none of it through the school. ie, Buy a book for $30 from half.com and I am sure will be able to sell it back for $30 5 months later... you guy got a free book.

6) Ebay everything you dont use regularly, this includes clothes.

7) Don' buy something you DONT need. Like suspensions for your car

I'm in a co-op program for university... the four years go: study study off study work study work study work study study

And co-op jobs pay over $8/hr as a rule, and people usually end up making a minimum of $10/hr and more...

Plus, drink specials. Mmmmm... drink specials.

lucky you meagicano... i dont think we have anything quite like that here in the states... we have work study, but that only goes to those in financial need, and it pays minimum wage.

The only way to save money while in school (unless your folks support you which is nothing to be ashamed of in school) is to bust your ass. I started my last year of college in January and will be finishing in December.
At the begining of the year I was $1000 in debt but one morning I woke up and thought "I am going to dedicate the entire year to saving up for extended (year +) travels for when I graduate in December." For the past 10 months I have been working two jobs and going to school full time.
Throught the two jobs I have worked a minimum of 40 hours a week (usually closer to 50 or 55) and will have managed to save about 10K.
I did not think that that would be enough, so I decided to take out a 10K student loan. I figured that I have school loand as it is, and travel is the most fulfiling/worth while/eye opening/enjoyable educational experience in the world.
Sometimes I get tired and frusterated at the lack of sleep that I am getting caused by my jam packed schedule, but then I just think about 2005 and the it all makes sence!
Without sacrafice and hard work it is hard to get where you want to be.

sometimes i wonder myself if everything that i am working so hard for is worth it... i dont sleep that much either. i know that where i will be in the end will be amazing... but the getting there (being in college, working my butt of) is whats hard!

I'm doing the same. Just saving every bit of money I can. Cutting back on spending in other places. Its a great feeling especially when it pays off.

working a part time job right now during my last year of high school, putting away as much money as possible from every paycheck, but still laeving enough to rent movies, go to the odd concert. Then come summer time I'm going to get a second part time job, until trip time in september(taking the year off). My dad's got tunz of frequent flyer miles that he never uses, so he's giving them to me for my trip, which is making it alot less expensive, and allows for me to stay longer.

I've been thinking about this thread a fair bit lately, especially when I've been about to hand over money. It's been helpful to refer to when I'm debating whether to spend or not.

To be honest, and show how I am spoiled, I can mainly thank my parents for being very appreciative and understanding of the importance of travel. If they hadn't made it easy for me to travel in the first place, I don't know if I'd have the perseverance to save for traveling now.

A lot of it comes down to discipline in my own spending habits, though. A couple weeks ago, I received an email from a clothing retailer. They were having a large sale, and I looked at their site, and in the end, I looked at all the items I'd selected. It was only $150 of clothing, and quite a few items for that much. I didn't buy right away, though. I went to school, and I came back, and I closed the window. I'd thought it over and verified my priorities. $150 could be several days of food and lodging, and that was more important to me.

Or recently, my hard drive has been making very bad clicking and thrashing sounds occasionally. I know it's on its last legs. Tonight it really got bad, had to make an emergency backup and pray a little. It's only a matter of time, and I've had this computer for nearly two and a half years, which is a very long time for me (a big geek). I've been eyeing a new laptop for a while, but I had been planning on buying one before I went abroad for a year, which isn't for nearly a year. Well, again, I thought long and hard, and decided that I'd rather have the money for traveling this summer, so instead bought just a new hard drive for $90. Which also shows why it was a good thing that I didn't buy the clothes, because that ended up being Save My Ass money ;-)

So yeah, I see lots of my friends slaving away to make car payments and eat out a lot, but for the student traveler, you just have to keep sucking it up and reminding yourself of the greater goal.

quote:

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Originally posted by LiveNomadic:
1) Freelance Web Work, lets you work from home and when you have time.

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I'm wondering a bit about this. I have done some web design work in the past, but not a lot, and I'm curious about a couple things:
a - Where does one find freelance web work.
b - What sort of skills do I need to actually get paid for such a thing? (Everything I've done before has been volunteer work, so anything was better than nothing)

quote:

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a - Where does one find freelance web work.
b - What sort of skills do I need to actually get paid for such a thing? (Everything I've done before has been volunteer work, so anything was better than nothing)

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a) Elance.com (elance-online), it is everything you need. Buyers post projects and then other people bid prices. It is like the Ebay of freelance skills.

b) check out the elance link... it is pretty much everything from music to CAD to web development (my thing)

You make REALLY good money doing this.

For example right now on elance one job posted is a simple 15 page site with a logo and a simple flash intro (and a few other things I cannot see, probably a CMS) The average bid US$860.64. I dont know the specifics of the project, but being all html and some graphic design I could probably do that project in 3-5 hours if I really worked my butt off, 10-15 hours max. That is ends up being a rate of $215.16 an hour. If it took 10 hours that is still $86.64 an hour... sure beats working at best buy.

I do not really do as much freelance as I should, but I'm living comfortable and rather busy with school and my own projects. However, it is nice to show that if I need a some money fast I know where I could find work.

I wish eeyartee was still on the boards (instead of a RTW trip), he basically lived off freelancing, even made the new bootsnall logo, he could explain freelancing in much more detail than I could.

You should definitely check it out, ESPECIALLY if you live in India. 90% of the jobs pay in US dollars, which means that Indians get paid really really nicely, while the English basically have to cut their profits in 1/2... (sorry dan).

damn now i wish i knew how to do all those fancy internet thingys!!

Look at this Project with a average bid of $100

I'll complete this project right here for you now:

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<html>
<head>
<title>Title</title>
</head>
<body>

<a href="www.widget.com/thefile.pdf">
You can download the PDF file here</a>

</body>
</html>

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That is it. It took me about 30 seconds. With any "dummies" guide to HTML you'd learn how to do that in the first chapter.

What people dont understand is that building websites isnt rocket science.. In fact, I'm horrible at science. People just see computers and think "AHHHH complicated!!" but it is ssooooo easy.

If you bought and read a SINGLE book on learning HTML, you could be doing those simple elance projects yourself.

How did you all get started in web design? Comp sci classes in college, or did you teach yourself?

$100 for less than an hour's work would be nice.

Chris, how many people are bidding on these projects? And how hard are they to actually land?

What are you paying as your monthly fee? I saw a variety of service packages...